Posted on 08/03/2008 10:04:18 PM PDT by forkinsocket
Religions thrived to protect our ancestors against the ravages of disease, according to a radical new evolutionary theory of the genesis of faith.
Prof Richard Dawkins the atheist and sceptic, has condemned religion as a "virus of the mind" but it seems that people became religious for good reason - actually to avoid infection by viruses and other diseases - according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences.
Dr Corey Fincher and Prof Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, come to this conclusion after studying why religions are far more numerous in the tropics compared with the temperate areas.
"Why does Cote d'Ivoire have 76 religions while Norway has 13, and why does Brazil have 159 religions while Canada has 15 even though in both comparisons the countries are similar in size?" they ask.
The reason is that religion helps to divide people and reduce the spread of diseases, which are more common the hotter the country, the research suggests.
Any society that increased its coherence by adopting a religion, and dealt less with local groups with other beliefs as a result of cultural isolation, gained an advantage in being less likely to pick up diseases from its neighbours, and in the longer term to have a slightly different genetic makeup that may offer protective effects, for instance by making them less susceptible to a virus.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Hogwash.
All societies had religion. The ancients prayed for rain and fertility.
Dr. Richard Dawkins is a virus of the soul.
Pigs and oysters and safe sex with one chick that ain't a whore.... duh... what an obvious theory.
Dawkins is a notorious halfwit, literally, he is Anti Christian and his replacement is pure science and nothing else.
In the words of Greenleaf:
“....The object of man’s worship, whatever it be, will naturally be his standard of perfection. He clothes it with every attribute, belonging, in his view, to a perfect character; and this character he himself endeavors to attain. He may not, directly and consciously, aim to acquire every virtue of his deity, and to avoid the opposite vices; but still this will be the inevitable consequence of sincere and constant worship as in human society men become assimilated, both in manners and moral principles, to their chosen associates, so in the worship of whatever deity men adore, they “form to him the relish of their souls.” To suppose, then, that God made man capable of religion, and requiring it in order to the development of the highest part of his nature, without communicating with him, as a father, in those revelations which alone could perfect that nature, would be a reproach upon God, and a contradiction...”
Free wine.
Salvation, faith, hope and charity and refusal to believe in the “happy accident” explanation.
Nah, it couldn’t be any of those.
Total and absolute "crap science." Did Al Gore write this?
If you isolate yourself from the gene pool it will make you more susceptible to disease from outside of the "local" gene pool. An example is measels. It is and was a somewhat mild childhood disease for most Europeans. It killed millions of Indians that had no genetic resistance to this disease. Isolation will give you decreased resistance to diseases that come from outside of your local gene pool.
For the theory of the author to be valid, the isolated groups would have to no contact not even limited contact with groups outside of their local gene pool. This is not reality. Humans will eat drink and have sex when in their local province and outside of their local province or particularly when outside of their local province.
Some religions do help curtail the spread of diseases. Indeed, much of the Law of Moses could be the basis for a guide to healthy living. To be sure, improvements in food preparation and sanitation techniques mean that dietary practices that would have been dangerous 2,000 years ago are much less so today, but I suspect that the health implications of the Law of Moses have a lot to do with why Jews thrived in ancient times.
Yes, 'cause there's nothing else similar about Norway/Canada vs. Cote d'Ivoire/Brazil besides their latitudes.
Sounds like BS some guy made up.
One would logically imagine that Dawkins stopped washing his hands after his visits to the toilet as part of his general rebellion against God.
Measles didn’t get a chance to kill Indians. Native hanta virus outbreaks did the job long before very many Europeans or Africans got to the Americas.
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